The BIG WILD topic, part XVI

Quest for Lucidity
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Breakthrough!

I felt my body fall asleep. I was counting on inhales and exhales, concentrating on my breathing to remove inner dialogue. On the exhale, near the end of the breath, I felt myself get heavier. HI began, I saw random images and my body became very heavy. I felt a cold sweat break out and lost feeling in my body, I believe it was SP, although I didn’t want to move and break the feeling. Everything felt very heavy and my muscles felt tense and relaxed at the same time. I felt almost dizzy, both in my head and in my stomach. It was like I could feel the blood in my veins, rushing through my ears creating a buzzing sound and vibrations. I felt as though I was floating in the red/black images seen behind closed eyelids. Unfortunately, I got excited, thinking “this is it! My body is falling asleep!” and it slowly faded away.

I counted to 100 several times (maybe 10 or 12), rarely losing count and having to start over. I felt the sensation of my body falling asleep about 5 times. It felt like about 45 minutes, but more than 100 minutes had actually passed. (I am quite sure I never actually slept.) I got up to write this and it felt good to stretch, my body cracked as though I had slept a full night. I never fully crossed to sleep, this time. I experimented by concentrating on the feeling of my sleeping body, quite a rush, almost frightening. I also tried concentrating more on the HI, looking at the back of my eyelids until the images came, to make myself aware that I was looking at something. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Closed-eye_hallucination The miasma made ripples, flowing outward. I tried to use it as HI, imagining myself falling, but to no effect.

It was like trying to tame a wild timid animal. You wanted it to come, but if you concentrated on it, you frightened it away. I think I have to feign disinterest, keep a detached feeling, try to remain objective and merely experience it instead of trying to force it. I can’t let the excitement come or adrenaline will pump and I won’t fall asleep.

After several hours of reaching the edge of sleep using a WILD technique (see “Breakthrough!” below), I decided to stop counting and just go to sleep. I did, receiving no LD’s, just dream fragments. I woke up with some time left, so I returned to bed. I felt myself on the edge of sleep twice, then on the third time I crossed, but there was a blackout period of about 10 minutes before the dream started. I was having trouble counting, reaching only 20’s. When the edge of sleep came, I gained some focus, reaching 100 and starting over at 1.

On the third time, I fell asleep, but I had a DILD instead of a WILD. It’s like a great backup plan. Click here to see my DILD.

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I decided to come back to LDing, and i want to give it a try with WILD.

Do HI disappear when you move your eyes?

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I suppose so as we dream each night. Some WILD’ers were measured in n-REM sleep in sleep laboratories. And I think you can have non visual dreams too but it’s harder to maintain lucidity.

Hey! Why do people ask impossible questions today? :happy: I’ll try and see tonight and I’ll answer you later. But why not trying by yourself? :tongue:

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Well i want to try it too, i never reached HI :smile:

Now it is the time…i’ll go to bed and tell tomorrow how was it :wink:

EDIT:
Din’t work.
I relaxed, and started couting saying im dreaming on inhale and exhale. i reached 120 when somebody started to walk in the house (my sister just loves to go to the bathroom in late night…). That disturbed me and i went to the kitchen for a glass of warm milk with honey. I came back to the bed, read a little and tried again. this time i reached 50 i felt in my stomach weird, like im forcing myself to do someyhing realy boring. I stoped and fell asleep. I woke up at 6, and tried again. I don’t realy recall what i did this time, but had no HI.

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I have a question about WILD. If you relax yourself, and remain conscious the whole time, if you just wait and continue focusing on breathing, will you eventually just LD? Like, sometimes when i WILD, I just sit there wondering if I keep sitting here, will I be successful.

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so i’ve been trying WILD almost every night when i can and i would always end up with the same results. After becoming relaxed i would start my counting mantra and after getting to about “i’m dreaming 36” for the forth time that night i seem to not be able to count past 40 :sigh: i would experience this sinking feeling and at the same time see a flash of light. Soon after my heart would start racing and my breathing would be somewhat labored. I would feel this sort of vibration in my chest but only my chest…i figured it was just my heart racing and i could feel it just that much. Images would soon follow of family or some scene but once i recognized there was a scene playing in front of me it would dissapear and the black void fills my vision again. My heart would slow down…my breathing would return to normal and again i would start my counting mantra…“i’m dreaming…1…i’m dreaming 2” The whole process would start again.

I’m reading everywhere that you have to pay attention to these images that pop up but when i do they go away!..maybe these aren’t the images i’m supposed to be looking for…or maybe i’m just way too excited when i try this whole thing. How (if any one could describe) can one enter a dream from this phase? When an image does linger for some time i notice that it’s very faint…how realistic do these images feel? Maybe these aren’t the images i’m looking for. Anyway…i’ll keep trying but any input would be greatly appreciated.

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Sounds like when you see the images you react to them too much and focus in with your physical bodies eyes. Try focusing on your dream senses.

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I have also been working on WILD for the fast few months. I can now get into an ND, at which point I become lucid, and then wake up. :sad: When the images come, I don’t try to pay a lot of attention to them. If I do, then like you I go back to being awake and have to start again. The feelings and the HI all can draw too much attention and cause you to wake up. For me, it is important to keep relaxed. It took a while befor I could stay relaxed through the HI. Now I can and I get into ND’s. I am not sure how long it takes after the HI starts, I might even sleep a bit in between. One time, I do rember that the HI changed into a dream. On all the other times, I don’t rember anything between HI and being in a dream and becomeing lucid.
I have heard that others go directly from HI into LD, but it doesn’t work like that for me, at least not yet. Maybe with more practice. Just try not to get too excited when things start happening. :grin:
don

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This is me exactly!

I always feel the HI very accurately, then one of two things happens:

  1. 5 minutes or so of nothingness happens (I recall it upon waking) and I’m in a dream. Often I realize I’m lucid right away, but the dream has already started, so I feel it’s a DILD.
  2. The HI turns into a dream item or a dream scene, and I’m instantly lucid. On one occasion, I felt that I had fallen through my bed and into a hallway, fully lucid in a dream. These experiences are definately WILD.

I’ve heard some people say that the first experience is also WILD, but they are so unique that I believe they are not.

I appreciate the first type also, it’s like a safety net if I miss the WILD. Then again, perhaps the first type is me going through the other stages before REM? This was asked a few questions ago, maybe this is what is happening?

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I do think that the first case is also WILD, because the blackout is short, just a few seconds to a minute or two and when the dream starts I am lucid. I have only had two DILD’s and in both cases the dream was going along as a ND and something happend that caused me to see that it was a dream. With the WILD’s I do not have any recall of an ND befor I am lucid.
Just how I see it for me.
don

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I’m unsure I understand your question. You have to fall asleep in order to WILD.

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Well, i tried to WILD once (one of my first times) and this is the closest i’ve got; i’l try my best to recall what happened.

I’ve lied on my back, but soon rolled over to my side. Relaxed, i started counting till 100 then back. Eventually my body felt heavy, sinking into the bed. Soon, i started noticing the HI, just watching. I remember at one point, two large circles became faces, and kissed. I started feeling dizzy, as if i was floating. I noticed i was drifting away slowly, so i concentrated on counting; then i started hearing voices, as if my thoughts or inner dialogue were alive. At this point, i couldn’t feel my body. Images started flashing, my breathing went shallow, and it was very hard to continue counting, i either lost count, or found myself saying “56 your breathing, 77 your breathing”…At that point, one image stayed there for more than a few seconds, a face looking at me. I forgot about counting and was just looking at that face, till it materialized into a 3D image, the face superimposed on a computer screen, moving closer and closer, getting bigger and bigger. I found myself too absorbed, and started to think “concentrate! don’t lose conciousness” but i woke up suddenly. I coudn’t continue after that, so i decided to just fall asleep.

How close was i? I don’t recall feeling SP. Just the heaviness, dizziness, floating and a spinning senstaion throughout that process. What should i have done differently?

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LiQuiDreamz, great detail in your explanation. That sounds just like mine! I don’t get a strong sense of SP, I suspect that I may be experiencing it, but since I don’t move, I don’t find out. Probably, around the time you didn’t feel your body, you were actually in SP.

I suspect that the thing to have done was to stop counting when the computer/face appeared in 3D and just remember that you were dreaming. It’s a balance of holding consciousness and letting go, I think that was your let-go point.

Keep telling us of your experiences, it’s so similar to mine, I suspect that your solution will work for me.

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when people reccomend doing WILD with a nap…do they mean that you should nap for a little while first and then attempt WILD or do WILD to begin your nap? or is it another way?

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As soon as i find a solution, you shall be the first to know, Lucid_Mike (along with my neighbours when they hear me screaming “EUREKA!” lol), and congrats for yet another LD :smile:

Yeah that makes sense; i guess sometimes i wouldn’t want to feel the SP :tongue:

Hmm, yes i think it’s the fact that since i wanted to keep on counting and stay conscious was why i woke up suddenly. I’l try again tonight after my WBTB; it’s just that fine line between consciousness and letting go, that’s just too fine for me, i either let go a bit too much and get absorbed, hence fall alseep, or hold my consciousness too much that i can’t allow myself to pass the barrier.

I’l give it another go tonight, any other advice or tips from other experienced WILD’ers ? :content:

Well, you just WILD as you fall asleep, in a nap you enter the REM-phases of sleep faster, and your mind is generally more alert than at night time, so doing it as you nap is easier.

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Its really hard to explain, but…hmm. If I try WILD, lets say I just sit there, counting. If I do this long enough, will I experience HI, and such? Because many times, I count, and count, and I end up getting discouraged, so I stop. Or I just become uncomfortable, and move. But I think that if I know that all I need to do is continue counting, then I will do it.

So to sum it all up, if I need to know that if I sit there counting, relaxing, ect, will a WILD come to me, (or normal sleep) because all of the times that I have tried WILDing, I end up giving up after no success.

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I’m no expert, but from everything I’ve learned from others here, I don’t think the WILD method is guaranteed for everyone and if you really want success with it you should combine it with WBTB. And if you’re someone who takes a long time to fall asleep, it’s not the best tech…but I think if you really put your mind to it and practice you can do anything, it just might take a lot of practice.

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i find that when i try WILD normally i cant get HI, even if i lie in bed for really long periods of time and dont fall asleep (although ive never had a successful WILD before)

however, when there is noise in the background and i just lay there i get HI after lying for a while (this is without WBTB). unfortunately, in those situations i have not had hte opportunity to try WILD.

should i try WILD with music or the TV on to help me get HI or should i continue trying WBTB and not getting HI…

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you have to actually be falling asleep, but you have to be conscious enough to realize that you are falling asleep.

i don’t know that you can be completely alert and relaxed and have lucidity. that would be some very advanced meditation… as far as i can think it if you want to go out of your body into a dream you HAVE to either be falling asleep, or be able to create some sort of dissociative trance state.

the goal is to keep counting while falling asleep, and staying alert enough to keep oscilating in and out of progressively deeper sleep, but not sleepy enough that you cannot continue counting.

focusing on the third eye (between eyebrows) seems to help maintain the lucid transition but … i need so much more practice.

TONIGHT! i will see.

what is recommended for yoga nidra (conscious deep sleep) is that you focus on the third eye to enter a conscious hypnagogic state, then the throat to enter the dreamstate… then the heart to enter deep sleep.

i did do this once and i made it to the lucid dream state but got distracted and didn’t pursue deep sleep.

swamij.com/yoga-nidra.htm

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Eh, the more I try WILD, the more discouraged I become. I tried it recently, and it leaves me tired, really hot, and when I do sleep, I do not remember my dreams as well as I normally do.

But I do have a question. Every time I do try WILD, I count, and At some point, I do not remember counting to that number, I feel that I drifted out, and “woke up” again at that time. Is this what is happening?

The BIG WILD topic continues here.